VéloSoleX 50th Anniversary

by Paul Hornby

Event at Cormeilles-en-Parisis

The September 1996 edition of the French moped customiser's
magazine Mob Chop contains an illustrated article, by
Didier Leclerq, on the 50th anniversary celebrations at
Courbevoie - not a baguette, snail or sting of onions to be
seen. The same issue also carried a brief notice of another
VSX exhibition to be held at Cormeilles-en-Parisis from 27th
September to 6th October.

Cormeilles-en-Parisis, a picturesque town 15 minutes by train
from Paris Gare St Lazare, is famous for being the
birthplace, in 1789, of Louis Daguerre, the photography pioneer,
and in August 1972, for being the location of the first 24 hour
endurance trial for VéloSoleXes. So it was fitting
that Messieurs Claude Lagoutte and Cyril Retiere, in
collaboration with l'Association 'Le Vieux Cormeilles',
should hold an exhibition celebrating the VSX at the Cormielles
Salle des Fêtes. During the exhibition,
several local shopkeepers and businesses, including M Froumy
the optician, Garçon-Garçonne the hairdressers and
M Bary the horse butcher, put VSX-related displays in their
windows.

In the entrance hall there was a display of literature and
photographs of the VéloSoleX and various 1950s cyclemotors
such as the Diem, Hémy, etc. A 1960 Côte
d'Ivoire stamp showing a postman with a VSX was displayed, as was
a newspaper cutting about Marie Emma Gabet of the Nord
Département. She had had her leg amputated in 1929;
in 1946 she bought a VSX and continued to use it until 1986 when
she was 75, her "fidèle compagnon". In one
corner was a display of the modern French 'Selectric'
cyclemotor.

As at Courbevoie, the exhibition was divided into themed
tableaux, 17 in all, such as the inside of a barn with two
unrestored early VSXs among straw bales and horse collars, or a
shop containing eight lovely early VSXs. Of over 60
machines, the following were noteworthy: a Triporteur tradesman's
trike built by Sociétés Sides et Crusson in
1976, a 3800 with a tradesman's sidecar - one to get David
Stevenson salivating like Pavlov's autocyclist - but without any
information as to who manufactured the sidecar, a VSX-engined
Chinese autocycle with a metallic cherry red coloured open frame
and lots of Chinese characters on the down tube - presumably
either a Lan Ying or a Hong Du. Among a display of current
Hungarian VSXs was one finished in a startling and very 1950s
acid green. There was a racing VSX with a Mikuni
carburettor and a large and disgustingly intestinal looking
exhaust system, a Voiturette d'Handicapé with a VSX
front end, two Surfracers and a VSX engined Véloto
car.

On learning that I was British, the organisers greeted me
warmly (in fact I think I was the only foreign visitor) and one
of them mentioned that she had heard of a British copy of the
VSX, following up with an expansive hand gesture, referring of
course to our old friend the Cymota with his coat of many
colours. This is not the first time that French enthusiasts
have mentioned Cymotas to me, so it seems that if any readers
have a spare Cymota that they are willing to exile to France,
they would undoubtedly have an obscure object of desire in the
blue smoke filled Solexine dens of Paris.

This enthusiast-organised exhibition, with its painstakingly
built tableaux, displays of VSX memorabilia such as key fobs,
gramophone records, stickers and transfers and, of course, the
machines themselves was far more comprehensive than that at
Courbevoie and deserves to have been better known and
publicised.